The Neil Cowley Trio came out of nowhere not so very long ago but suddenly they’re into their third album and the band seems to be part of the fabric of the new UK jazz scene. This time around, with new album Radio Silence, it’s a chance, says Cowley, to portray some of the Thames valley characters he comes across. Ahead of the launch of the album and full UK tour to support the album the pianist talks to Selwyn Harris 



“I’m a rock ’n’ roll pub piano player really, that’s what I am.” Humour is never too far away when you’re speaking to Neil Cowley, but this he says entirely straight-faced. “When I’ve been involved with anything other than jazz I’ve been compared to real British old R&B piano players like Nicky Hopkins who played with the Stones and people like that. That’s my history really, that’s where I was brought up,” says the 37-year old pianist-composer, chatting to me in the South Bank’s National Theatre foyer, against a very un-Cowley like backdrop of a commuter jazz piano trio tinkling away on standards. 



“Aged 19, I even joined British R&B pub bands. One was called the Mafia from High Wycombe who Mark Knopfler left before I joined. I was always mingling with these guys. My basis is actually there. I learnt all my chops from there. These guys were real rock ’n’ roll stories. There was a guy called Chris who was a guitarist and he was a heroin addict. I used to hang out with these guys and he would put himself in rehab, forgot he had a gig, then realise he had a gig, nick a nurse’s costume, jump over the wall, nick a car, go to the petrol station, not pay, police would be called, then he’d turn up to the gig in a nurses costume, do the three quarters of an hour gig, get arrested, and is taken away.” Cowley spits out an anecdote the way a stand-up comic would. He may have inherited this from his father who was a comedian.

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #141 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE copy of Dewey Redman's classic 'The Struggle Continues'.